Facebook says it’s ‘working’ to resolve outages across Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger

Facebook has had problems loading images, videos, and other data across its apps today, leaving some people unable to load photos in the Facebook News Feed, view stories on Instagram, or send messages in WhatsApp.

Facebook says it is aware of the issues and “working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible.” It blamed the outage on an error that was triggered during a “routine maintenance operation.”

The issues started around 8AM ET and began slowly clearing up after a couple hours, according to DownDetector, which monitors website and app issues. The errors aren’t affecting all images; many pictures on Facebook and Instagram still load, but others are appearing blank. DownDetector has also received reports of people being unable to load messages in Facebook Messenger.

We’re aware that some people are having trouble uploading or sending images, videos and other files on our apps. We’re sorry for the trouble and are working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible. #facebookdown

— Facebook (@facebook) July 3, 2019

The outage persisted through mid-day, with Facebook releasing a second statement, where it apologized “for any inconvenience.” Facebook’s platform status site lists a “partial outage,” with a note saying that the company is “working on a fix that will go out shortly.”

Apps and websites are always going to experience occasional disruptions due to the complexity of services they’re offering. But even when they’re brief, they can become a real problem due to the huge number of users many of these services have.

A Facebook outage affects a suite of popular apps, and those apps collectively have billions of users who rely on them. That’s a big deal when those services have become critical for business and communications, and every hour they’re offline or acting strange can mean real inconveniences or lost money.

These are some of the tweets about #Facebookdown, #Instagramdown, #WhatsAppdown

This is Twitter users when Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp is Down #instagramdown #WhatsAppDown #facebookdown pic.twitter.com/3XKapghtOU

— Atul Shokeen (@AtulShokeen2) July 3, 2019

How humbling must it be for Facebook and Instagram to have to slide over to Twitter to let everyone know they are down? #facebookdown #instagramdown pic.twitter.com/ge0Wjy47D8

— Chadwick M. Fischer (@Fischwick) July 3, 2019

Me turning my wifi on and off 25 times in a row and suddenly opens twitter and realized… ohh! stop blaming your wifi Everytime😂🤣🤣🤣 #instagramdown #WhatsAppDown #facebookdown pic.twitter.com/lbNbLixIiM

— meinrad junior (@meinrad395) July 3, 2019

Guys, if we each post this image once, the Facebookers and Instagrammers will just assume twitter is down too and leave us alone #Instagramdown #FacebookDown pic.twitter.com/DpdqRZ2c4Z

— Mike Mc Loughlin (@zuroph) July 3, 2019

How I feel right now with Instagram, Facebook and Whatsapp down #instagramdown #facebookdown pic.twitter.com/pXOibbIikS

— inioluwaadesola (@inioluwaadesola) July 3, 2019

Currently everyone on Facebook and Instagram #facebookdown #instagramdown pic.twitter.com/y8K25M2qjK

— Drake Alexander Knight (@drakealexknight) July 3, 2019

WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook users going to Twitter. #instagramdown #facebookdown #instagramdown pic.twitter.com/tV30qGaHu0

— Luis figueroa (@LuisFig96429630) July 3, 2019

Facebook: Down
Instagram: Down
Whatsapp: Down

Logging into Twitter like: 🤣🤣 #WhatsApp #instagramdown #facebookdown pic.twitter.com/ycsNd9l5Jb

— Ceren (@CerenNurKayaa) July 3, 2019

Twitter being unproblamtic app:#instagramdown #facebookdown #whatsappdownpic.twitter.com/9M42PsFjSi

— . (@madodoni_) July 3, 2019